The Old Wives' Tale eBook

Old houses, in the course of their history, see sad
sights, and never forget them! And ever since,
in the solemn physiognomy of the triple house of John
Baines at the corner of St. Luke’s Square and
King Street, have remained the traces of the sight
it saw on the morning of the afternoon when Mr. and
Mrs. Povey returned from their honeymoon—­the
sight of Mrs. Baines getting into the waggonette for
Axe; Mrs. Baines, encumbered with trunks and parcels,
leaving the scene of her struggles and her defeat,
whither she had once come as slim as a wand, to return
stout and heavy, and heavy-hearted, to her childhood;
content to live with her grandiose sister until such
time as she should be ready for burial! The grimy
and impassive old house perhaps heard her heart saying:
“Only yesterday they were little girls, ever
so tiny, and now—­” The driving-off
of a waggonette can be a dreadful thing.

BOOK II

CONSTANCE

CHAPTER I

REVOLUTION

I

“Well,” said Mr. Povey, rising from the
rocking-chair that in a previous age had been John
Baines’s, “I’ve got to make a start
some time, so I may as well begin now!”

And he went from the parlour into the shop. Constance’s
eye followed him as far as the door, where their glances
met for an instant in the transient gaze which expresses
the tenderness of people who feel more than they kiss.

It was on the morning of this day that Mrs. Baines,
relinquishing the sovereignty of St. Luke’s
Square, had gone to live as a younger sister in the
house of Harriet Maddack at Axe. Constance guessed
little of the secret anguish of that departure.
She only knew that it was just like her mother, having
perfectly arranged the entire house for the arrival
of the honeymoon couple from Buxton, to flit early
away so as to spare the natural blushing diffidence
of the said couple. It was like her mother’s
commonsense and her mother’s sympathetic comprehension.
Further, Constance did not pursue her mother’s
feelings, being far too busy with her own. She
sat there full of new knowledge and new importance,
brimming with experience and strange, unexpected aspirations,
purposes, yes—­and cunnings! And yet,
though the very curves of her cheeks seemed to be
mysteriously altering, the old Constance still lingered
in that frame, an innocent soul hesitating to spread
its wings and quit for ever the body which had been
its home; you could see the timid thing peeping wistfully
out of the eyes of the married woman.

Constance rang the bell for Maggie to clear the table;
and as she did so she had the illusion that she was
not really a married woman and a house-mistress, but
only a kind of counterfeit. She did most fervently
hope that all would go right in the house—­at
any rate until she had grown more accustomed to her
situation.